Bush Oks Base Closings

Congress Is Proposal's Next -- And Last -- Hurdle

WASHINGTON — Fort Monroe moves a step closer to its end as an Army post. Va. Beach will have to spend millions to save Oceana.

President Bush approved a plan to close 22 major military bases Thursday, including Hampton's Fort Monroe.

Unless Congress votes within 45 days to reject the entire proposal -- a prospect widely considered unlikely -- the proposed closing or restructuring of hundreds of bases across the country will become law.

With a week to spare before a legislative deadline, Bush issued a swift approval of the recommendations of the Defense Base Realignment and Closure Commission, which voted to close Fort Monroe, restructure Fort Eustis, and leave the fate of Oceana Naval Air Station up to state and local officials.

"I certify that I approve all the recommendations contained in the commission's report," Bush wrote in a brief message to Congress.

The White House had signaled for weeks that approval was likely, although some Gulf Coast lawmakers made last-minute pleas to Bush to spare two of their bases from closure after Hurricane Katrina.

Under the rules of the base-closure process, Bush had the option of returning the report to the commission one time for changes.

Earlier this week, Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, raised the possibility of rethinking the base-closure recommendations because of the Katrina relief effort, which has required the deployment of tens of thousands of military personnel.

But in a statement Thursday night, Warner suggested that he would accept Bush's decision and prepare his state for the recommended closings and realignments.

The decision is particularly problematic for Virginia Beach, which must spend millions of dollars to buy an estimated 1,800 homes and some businesses around Oceana Naval Air Station if it wants to save the base from closure.

If the city and state fail to take those steps by next year, Oceana could be closed and Florida's former Cecil Field air station could be reopened.

Congress may have one last chance to derail the base-closure recommendations, when Warner's annual defense authorization bill comes to the Senate floor later this month.

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., is pushing an amendment to delay all base closures until after military operations in Iraq have ended.

But since Thune introduced his amendment last summer, the commission voted to save South Dakota's Ellsworth Air Force Base, as well as a submarine base in Connecticut and a naval shipyard in Maine, thereby weakening the momentum for a delay.

Those and other moves by the commission mean the Pentagon will save less money than planned from the first base-closure effort in more than a decade. The commission chairman said the Pentagon's initial estimate of saving $49 billion over 20 years could be reduced to about $37 billion. *